Lon wrote: Ransom is right, if you look at the official White House pictures of the function, it is clear that the White House was trying to keep this matter secret. It seems obvious that as the stars posed for their publicity photos they were thinking how clever it was that this was going to be kept a secret. – in response to The Alice-in-Wonderland President

Dear Lon,

OK. Let’s get this straight: The White House didn’t seek to keep this secret, even though they had discussions about keeping it secret. Yet it remained secret until the revelations in Kantor’s book despite the White House not trying to keep it secret. The secrecy happened just by coincidence?

Obama ought to go by the name Mr. Coincidental, because everything that happens on his watch you all defend by acting like it’s just a coincidence.

The worst economic recovery since the Great Depression and Obama’s president: That’s just a coincidence.

Obama puts billion of taxpayer money into loan programs for green companies that just coincidentally are tied to his biggest financial supporters.

Every time a financial crisis happens, Obama pals Buffett or Soros just coincidentally happen to be around to buy preferred stock or some other investment that’s backed up by government credit.

The ATF walks guns to violent Mexican criminals with no follow through, coincidentally when the ATF and the Obama administration are pushing for scrapping the 2nd Amendment.

I’ll let the readers take it from here and list all the other coincidences that have happened under Obama.

MsAllison wrote: It's adorable the way John Ransom believes this crap of Kantor's. Kantor interviewed the Obamas once, decided that there was tension between them and that might make a juicy book and then spoke to WH staff people to get their opinions and then fabricated a novel in which Mrs. Obama recklessly spends "The Taxpayers' Money" on her personal pleasures. – in response to The Alice-in-Wonderland President

Dear Allison,

Liberals have called me a lot of things, but never have I been called adorable by them.

But thanks, my wife agrees with you 100 percent- on the adorable part.

On the rest of it, she thinks you’re nuts, in a real, clinical and medically certifiable way.

Kantor’s liberal pedigree is impeccable. Columbia, Hahvahd, Slate, New York Times. She’s been covering Obama and Michelle for quite some time.

But what really tells me she is on the mark- besides the fact that everything we learned from her book is consistent with what we see in Obama’s presidency- is that the Obama folks have been out doing the full court press to rebut her.

I never pick on Michelle Obama because I think generally it’s cheap to drag someone’s family into political slugfests. But I’ll make an exception here because Michelle injected herself into the fight.

In response to Kantor’s book Michelle did a puff interview saying that she was tired of being depicted as an angry black woman. Well here’s an idea for you then Michelle: Stop acting like an angry black woman. And Mr. President, if you are truly concerned with the deficit, then stop spending money the country doesn’t have. Or here’s a novel idea: Present a balanced budget…or a budget that will get one (1) vote.

Because we know already that at least part of the book is true that Obama claims is fabricated. Former press secretary Robert Gibbs says that he apologized to Michelle for an incident that the White House says never happened.

It’s like I wrote in the original story: “It only ‘looks’ bad if you get caught, I guess.”

Caught.

Truth01 wrote: Ransom said: “Obama’s policies have sought to provide short-term, dependent-creating panaceas for declining employment rather than long-term employment opportunities.” What is being done are stop gap measures they are not intended to be long term. It is an attempt to buy time until the economy gains traction. Unfortunately I have not heard one idea from the Republican side that is any better. – in response to Obama Can’t See Unemployed from Martha’s Vineyard

Dear Comrade 01,

Stop gap measures don’t work. They just increase dependency. The solution isn’t more unemployment benefits, but more jobs. You do that by getting out of the way and letting the economy do its proper job.

Here’s one GOP solution that had bipartisan support and which the president is ducking for political reasons only: Approve the XL Keystone Pipeline.

The idea that the pipeline is a threat to water in Nebraska is a stalling tactic only. It ignores the fact that in Nebraska alone there are already 20,570 miles of pipeline and XL would add about 400 more miles.

From the US Department of Transportation:“The energy transportation network of the United States consists of over 2.5 million miles of pipelines. That's enough to circle the earth about 100 times. These pipelines are operated by approximately 3,000 companies, large and small.” The number of pipeline incidents is going down, not up, if you don’t count the Obama administration’s disastrous record on pipeline safety.

Source: Allegro Energy Group, 2001

Note in the graph above the red line with the marker that says “Platte.” That’s the same Sandhills area where the XL Keystone Pipeline is proposed to go through Nebraska.

We’ve been operating pipelines in the country- including the Sandhills- for decades without degrading the environment.

Kathy18 wrote: Love your columns John. The only thing I would add is that I personally don't like being laid off and am not one of those who would vote for him because I get unemployment benefits. I will go out and campaign for whoever gets the Republican nomination. In my long life I have never been without work for so long and Obummer's policies are just keeping the destruction in place. – in response to Obama Can’t See Unemployed from Martha’s Vineyard

Dear Kathy,

Of course you want to work. Conservatives understand that Americans have no animus against work. You won’t find a harder working country than the USA.

In the 1970s when the welfare state dominated our economy, full employment was considered by economists to be around 7 percent. There was no way our economy could provide jobs for that last 7 percent economists told us.

Then Ronald Reagan was elected and we started to roll back regulations on business and started to rein in the welfare state. By 2000, unemployment bottomed out at 3.8 percent, a number that economists had told us two decades previously was impossible.

That’s between 4-5 million extra people in the workforce contributing to GDP.

So, when Democrats talk about income inequality, they shouldn’t forget to add in the 4-5 million people who will be permanently unemployed if they keep running things their way. Don’t forget the $5.5 trillion that the economy won’t produce in GDP over ten years if the Democrats switch us back to a welfare state.

Don’t worry though. Things will improve as the election gets closer.

Sharty wrote: For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire. The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks. – in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science

Dear Sharty,

Pretty thin circumstantial evidence as admitted by the researchers of an old report

The worst that can be said on the basis of the report you cited is that industry used faulty casings- and even that’s not certain.

And by the way, there are legal remedies in place for homeowners who think their water has been contaminated by drilling. Those remedies will probably suffice to make drillers act responsibly.

But as the British geologists have said, the risks of contamination of ground water aren’t that widespread.

You want to live in a world where there is zero risk. I think there is an acceptable level of risk for most things. You want to cite the exceptions and pretend like they are the standard rule.

There were a dozen train accidents in the US this year with at least 16 fatalities. Over the last 3 years there were only 9 serious incidents involving 175,000 miles of hazardous liquid pipelines with 7 fatalities, yet you probably still want the government to build high speed trains while damning another 1700 miles of pipeline.

Remember at Love Canal it wasn’t the chemical company, but the local school board that acted irresponsibly by using land that they knew was contaminated by toxic chemicals. The rest of us don’t get off as cheaply as the government does when you cede power to them over our lives based on incomplete, biased and shoddy science.

David4 wrote: Documented goof in the article: Five of six Nobel committees are in Sweden, not Norway. Only the Peace Prize committee is in Norway. The goof doesn't change the effect of the article, but it is still a goof. – in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science

Dear David,

You are correct. It should have read “Peer-review for such efforts have widely consisted of 1) Approval by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which is controlled by the Labour and Socialist parties of Norway (really)”

It seems the Peace Prize Committee is the one that we all have a problem with.

Unrealistic wrote: A new question, are we shrinking the earth by deflating it? We know oil and natural gas are pressurized, if one thinks of the earth as a balloon and relieves said pressure with say a syringe is not the whole reduced by the removal of internal volume? – in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science

Dear Unrealistic,

This is probably a good question for Rep. Hank Johnson who did that bang-up work on the question of whether the island of Guam was going to capsize if too many people rushed to the edge of the island too quickly.

Yes. In fact, I DO get to pick who leaves the White House. And so do you.

I also got to pick who went to the US House of Representatives and to the US Senate. I admit we have more work to do there, but I take a great deal of pride that we kicked the liberals out of the House, in part because it probably just burns you.

Uncle America wrote: John, you forgot to mention that Bill Daley isn't leaving but is going to be heading the Obama campaign. A senior Obama campaign aide told CNN on Monday that Daley will serve as one of the co-chairs for Obama's re-election campaign. – in response to Wrong Chicago Guy Resigns from White House

Dear Uncle,

Just a fig leaf, my friend.

Kirk92 wrote: After reading all of these comments I have to ask, am I on the "Daily Kos"? What is all of this class envy doing on TH? Hey, businesses go out of business. Someone got to break them up. Vultures are as necessary in the free market as they are in the desert. I feel like I'm on a board with a bunch of Flea Party trolls. – in response to Mitt: All American Vulture Capitalist

Dear Comrade 92,

No class envy here.

I worked in private equity. I once did a hostile takeover of a bank that was in trouble. I know how companies like Bain work. And I have no problem with it.

But while it doesn’t automatically disqualify Mitt for my vote, it doesn’t particularly qualify him either.

Obama, the coziest of all with Wall Street, is going to run a “The Rest of Us” versus “Wall Street” campaign.

You see, I'm in favor of free market capitalism, which, judging by Mitt's record, he is not. That’s why I think his candidacy is problematic.

You might have noticed that the American people are kind of sick of the cozy relationship that Wall Street has with Washington regardless of who is in power.

Do you really think that after TARP, MF Global, Solyndra, etc. that the country is looking to be saved by an investment banker with Romney’s public policy background? Or that Wall Street needs to be saved by more legislation honchoed by a private equity guy?

Why not just nominate Warren Buffet or George Soros to run the country? Isn’t Mitt the same kind of banking “technocrat” that Europe has running the show now?

You assume that just because Romney was an investment banker that somehow he's a free market guy.

He's not. Mitt Romney is purely and simply what we know him to be: A big government opportunist.

Does a free market guy craft the first American socialized medicine program?

No. He doesn’t.

It all goes to electability. And the Bain background combined with Mitt’s lack of respect for free markets in public policy punctures the electability myth surrounding Mitt, I fear.

I hope I’m not right about that because it looks like he’s going to be the guy.